Not That Guy
by Ellen-Thalia
Summary: "You are not the same guy I climbed that beanstalk with." When Emma finds out Belle has a fake dagger, Killian tells her everything that happened with Mr. Gold. (Captain Swan)


_**Emma and co. find out the Belle has a fake dagger… Killian tells her he's not changed at all... (unbeta'd)**_

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"I can't believe it. That he'd do that to _Belle,_" Emma huffed, shaking her head as we entered her office at the sheriff's station. I knew I had to tell her everything. My hand, the blackmail, whatever I helped Rumpelstiltskin do with that hat… "I can see him lying to the rest of us, hell I'm not even surprised that he'd lie to us, but I never thought he'd hurt Belle like that."

She was going to find out sooner or later any way. I should have told her as soon as the Crocodile took my hand (again). I _definitely _should have told her after I assisted bloody murder. Gods why didn't I just tell her from the start? Why couldn't I have learned from when Zelena cursed my lips?

"You're awfully quiet," Emma's comment broke me out of my thought, "I expected you to be all over this, all 'bloody Crocodile will never change' of something."

Usually her very poor imitation of my accent would have brought a smile to my face, but today all I could do was look up. By some miracle I managed to meet Emma's eyes but I knew my guilt was written all over my face. I saw the moment she realised the truth, it was there in the set of her jaw and the way her eyes widened just a little bit, barely noticeable.

"You knew?"

I was relieved to hear the shock in her voice, rather than some form of resigned disappointment. Then I felt horrible because whether I'd shocked her with my actions or not, I'd still reverted to my old ways.

"You knew the dagger was a fake, didn't you?" Emma demanded.

"Aye." I took a deep breath, and began the whole story before I lost my nerve. "I knew that Rumpelstiltskin would never let anyone have that power over him, not even Belle. You saw yourself, in Neverland, he wouldn't even give the bloody dagger to Bae. So when you sent me and Elsa back here the other day, I took her the pawn shop, confronted the crocodile and blackmailed him in to helping Elsa. And then again before our date, so he'd restore my hand."

Emma considered me for a moment, her expression blank and I hated that I didn't know what she was thinking. That she was putting that wall between us once more and it was all my fault. "There's more. Isn't there?"

I nodded and continued. "Before I had him restore my hand, he warned be that the hand had belonged to the selfish pirate I once was, and that reattaching it may cause me to revert to that man-"

"Wait!" Emma held her hand up, the look of horror on her face had me panicking. "He still had _your_ hand? The one he cut off three hundred years ago?" I nodded. "He _kept_ it?"

"Aye, he said it was to remind him that he should have killed me when he had the chance."

"Just when I thought nothing could surprise me, in this town," she muttered. "That's just plain creepy."

I continued with the story, I told her about the Crocodile's warning, seeing beating Will Scarlet outside the library, Gold's claim to have switched the daggers…

"He had me meet him at the docks, said I had to help him with something as payment for taking my hand back. We followed this walking broom to a house, where he had me help him…" I looked away, too ashamed to say anything more.

"What, Killian?" Emma asked, her voice was purposely flat but I could still hear a note of fear. "What did he do?"

"I'm not even sure, Swan. I think I helped him kill someone! There was this box and he waved his dagger over it. The box became a hat and then the hat… absorbed the man in the house." I sighed, the worst part was out there now so I quickly told her about the tape and his leverage over me.

Emma was silent for a long time.

"Please say something, love," I whispered, wishing she'd talk, yell, use her magic to blast me in to the damned cell behind me. I deserved all of that, but I couldn't take her silence.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she eventually asked, barely above a whisper. "You could have told me when you realised something was wrong, or after he asked for your help, after he did whatever he did to that man…" she huffed, pacing behind her desk with her hand running through her hair in frustration. "For God's sake, Killian, why didn't you just tell me about the dagger as straight away?"

"Because I haven't changed, Emma!" I shouted, startling both of us. I dropped into a chair and put my head in to my hand. "He was lying to me about the hand. It wasn't cursed… Everything I did was _me. _All this entire episode accomplished was proving that I'm still the same man I always was. It just proved that I don't deserve to be with you."

There was a tense silence, I don't know how long it lasted, but I vaguely noticed Emma had moved around the desk so she was standing in front of me.

"Killian look at me, please." Reluctantly I met her eyes, I still couldn't read her but she reached down and took my hand and hook in hears, lacing our fingers together the way she had on out date. It was a small gesture but it was enough to give me hope that I hadn't ruined everything. "I'm no expert on relationships, we both know that," my lips twitched, almost into a smile, "but I'm pretty sure they're not about _deserving_ each other. Their about how we feel.

"What I do know, without a doubt, is that you are not the same guy I climbed that beanstalk with. You _have_ changed, Killian. I see it," I smiled at the absolute certainty in her eyes. Emma returned the smile and pulled me to my feet, surprising me when she wrapped her arms around me and rested her face on my chest. I returned the embrace with a sigh of relief. She didn't hate me. "And you know what? Even if you were that guy, he wasn't all bad." I pulled back with a frown. "You were telling the truth that day, and you didn't deserve to be left up there. I can tell myself that I couldn't take a risk, or I was protecting Henry, or any of the excuses I told myself on the climb down, but the truth is that when you told me to trust you I wanted to. It had been so long since I trusted anyone, after Neal… I never wanted to trust again. Until you," I returned the slight smile she offered, remembering my confession in the echo caves. I leaned down brushed my lips, softly over hers, tightening my arms around her waist. "The guy who locked me in a cell and shot Belle… him I wasn't a fan of," she admitted when we pulled apart, a little humour in her voice.

I chuckled and pressed my forehead to hers. "Me either, love."

Emma pulled back to lean on the desk, linking her fingers through mine once more. "Whether the hand was cursed or it was the power of suggestion, or whatever, Gold has always brought out the worst in you, Killian, but we all have a bad side. The important thing is that you've fight it. I've seen you fight to be better, Killian, time and time again. So come on," she stood and tugged me towards the door. "We have to go and get that hat and find out exactly what it do to that guy."

I followed without argument, wondering how she had so easily forgiven me. I couldn't fathom how but I seemed to be falling even more in love with this woman.


End file.
